Norm Matthews

Thanks heidih. Some of the shanks were simmered with the greens, some simmered with the beans. Greens simmered with sugar, hot sauce and red pepper flakes. Beans simmered with a little brown sugar, cinnamon, chicken broth and a dash of sherry. The butter went on the beans and the corn bread which was baked in a cast iron mold shaped like ears of corn. It is Wagner Ware and has a patent date of 1920. The bread basket is woven from palm fronds. It was a gift from a lady when i vacationed in Kaua'i.

Hey y'all, ah am having some ham shanks, navy beans, corn bread, collard greens with some ice cold Co-Cola

I'm smokin and grilling in the rain. Actually it was just a few drops of rain but the cloud cover made it pleasant to be outside. I grilled a butterflied (leap frog style butterfly) chicken that was marinated overnight and basted with a mix that included paprika, garlic, lime juice and olive oil. It was a good thing the smoker was going too because I ran out of gas before the chicken was done and finished it over the coals in the fire box of the smoker. I also cooked some corn on the cob over the coals, then cut it off the cob, heated it in a sauce pan with butter, salt, honey and cream. I got some raw Cajun Bratwurst and smoked them in the smoker. The picture was taken when they were about half done. The steam and smoke made my lens foggy so the picture is blurry.. sorry. Now that they are done and cooled in ice water they will be ready to steam in beer for dinner tonight. The chicken and corn was lunch. I plan to make some eggplant to go with the sausage for dinner tonight. The chicken bratwurst cold smoked at between 160 and 190 for most of the three hours in the smoker. Sorry about the blurry picture of the half done brats

MMM my kind of meal

Dinner tonight was Martini Chicken Breasts on fettucini with a white sauce.

As requested, here is a picture of the Cuban steak. It was almost ten when Cassie got home so dinner was quite late. The picture was taken in the dark so I am surprised it even turned out at all. Second picture is of the steak cut up, chimichurri sauce, nopalitos with tomatoes and onions, fried sweet potatoes and corn. Color isn't very good in the pictures. Dessert was fresh juicy peaches and tres leches cake. Dinner was a hit, I'm told, and Both Charlie and Cassie liked the steak with just the adobo and garlic oil better than with the cajun seasoning, salt and pepper added. Steak was "marinated" with the rub for about three hours before grilling.

I am glad to answer any question anyone has about the recipe. The original recipe for Cuban style steak is as follows but we found it too salty and I'm just using adobo seasoning and garlic infused olive oil and broil or grill it for around 25 minuted, depending on thickness. 4 lbs chuck eye steak, 1-inch thick, beef 2 tablespoons garlic-flavored olive oil ( or mix some olive oil with garlic powder or fresh minced garlic) 1 tablespoon cajun seasoning 2 tablespoons adobo seasoning ( with or without pepper) 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper This is the adobo rub I used. All ingredients that are not already powdered go into a spice grinder until powdered 2 T. allspice berries 2 T. black peppercorns 1 t. cumin seeds One 1 1/2” cinnamon stick, broken 7 whole cloves 2 T. sweet paprika 1 T. chipotle powder 1 T. ancho chili powder 1/4 C. kosher salt 1/4 C. sugar I always serve it with chimichurri sauce. Place all ingredients in food processor and puree. 1 cup (packed) fresh Italian parsley 1/2 cup olive oil 1/3 cup red wine vinegar 1/4 cup (packed) fresh cilantro 2 garlic cloves, peeled 3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon salt

Dinner will be later tonight but here are most of the ingredients. We will have a Cuban style chuck steak with chimichurri sauce, nopalitos with tomatoes and onions. baked then fried sweet potatoes and store bought tres leches cake.

I have my smoker going with a small 2 lb. brisket. The picture is as of now, three hours in. I figure since it is so small it will be done in another three. Going to try making some potatoes O'Brien with some Sun Chokes added in as one of the sides.

Son's GF's birthday is tomorrow and she wants cheesecake instead of a cake so I made this one. It has a sweetened sour cream 'icing' and is topped with half strawberries and half raspberries. The glaze is Cointreau and raspberry sauce. She also wants steak for dinner so I will do some shell steaks on the grill along with roasted potatoes, corn, zucchini and green beans with onions and mushrooms.

They look like they're pretty nice. My first smoker was electric. It worked well.

That's great. What kind did you get?

Still breaking in my new smoker, I smoked a slab of spare ribs then after they were done, did some partial St. Louis trimming. Cassie prefers meat without the bone and the trimmed part had some gristle but no bone.

Dinner tonight was a pork loin stuffed with spinach, onion, bella mushrooms, bacon and provolone cheese and cooked outdoors on the grill. Green beans are Southern style (my mom) simmered with onion and bacon. Dessert was a cherry crisp that was good but did not turn out at all like I expected it to.

Grilled rib-eye steak with scratch made Adobo rub, potato, salad with dressing made with mango vinegar, honey, grainy Dijon and Spanish olive oil. A couple other dressings were on the table but no one wanted them.

I am all set for outside cooking now. I just added a propane grill to the new smoker. I broke it in with a spatchcocked chicken with an adobo rub and a orange serrano glaze. It was served with a poblano lime aioli and grilled zucchini. It looked better on the table than it did in the picture.

I used my new smoker again today. Last night I took a small piece of pork shoulder and seasoned it with a rub, rolled and tied it and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. Today I smoked it for 6 hours. This is half of it. I gave the other half to my back yard neighbors.

Dinner tonight was acorn squash baked with salt and pepper, maple syrup and butter. Cheeseburger had onion, mayo and a grilled deli bun. It is probably my imagination but since I moved to Kansas City, I think the hamburger tastes better.

Duck eggs have a larger size and a larger proportion of yolk to white. They taste about the same as chicken eggs but a little richer. Any way you like to prepare chicken eggs will give you great eggs. They are also great in cakes, as heidih mentioned.

kayb, if you just need a small smoker, a Weber kettle will work as both a small smoker and regular grill. The one I have is the smallest one that company makes (Horizon smokers)

I have substituted ground turkey with OK results. I didn't use a panade per se, but I did use some dry bread crumbs and tomato paste.

I recently moved and immediately afterwards ordered a good quality BBQ smoker. It was delivered yesterday. Like a cast iron skillet, it needed seasoning which I did last night. Today I smoked a slab of spare ribs. Here is a pic. of dinner: The ribs, black bean, tomato and corn salsa, BBQ beans and roasted new potatoes. Not pictured is Spumoni ice cream for dessert. The smoker in action and the ribs

There are lots of aromatic vegetables one can use to flavor stocks. Carrots and celery are just two. I'd almost always want to include something from the onion family though.

I have been packing, moving and unpacking for a couple of months. Even though the new kitchen space is bigger, counter space and storage is smaller. The strip steak was done indoors on a cast iron griddle, corn and potato in the oven. Halfway through the spinach I realized I didn't have any vinegar so used sone Italian dressing. Salad was tomatoes, onion, celery, radish, and carrot. I used Plugra butter on the breadstick, potato and corn. Drink was Squirt.

One BBQ book I saw refers to grilling and 'City" BBQ. Competition smokers consider slow smoke to be the only BBQ. The following is a brief look at old traditional (Southern) BBQ areas around the country and a very cursory look at the general trends in each area. There are exceptions and at the risk of being stereotypical, I humbly submit the following. Please feel free to criticize or elaborate as you see fit. A brief survey of BBQ. Barbecue started out as a Southern thing. It probably started in the Virginia colonies and they learned about it from Native Americans, African Slaves and Caribbean traders. In the South, BBQ meant pork. Pork was the choice of large gathering cook outs because it was cheap. Hogs could run wild and forage for themselves. Farmers didn’t have to feed them and they didn’t compete with people by eating the same food. Barbecue was perfect for wild hogs because the long slow cooking over a smokey fire made tough stringy meat delicious. BBQ often brought people together since a hog could feed from 40 to 100 people. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson wrote about BBQ;s the attended. Scarlet O’Hara met Rhett at a BBQ. BBQ could bring crowds to church and votes for politicians. Even though everyone could agree that BBQ was a good thing, there were strong feelings that people could argue about. Chopped or pulled, whole or shoulder, tomato baste or vinegar. It was really about keeping traditions alive and stubbornly insisting that it be done right instead of the easy way. North Carolina The East Carolina traditional BBQ is the closest to the earliest forms of slow cooking. It is whole hog, open pit and it‘s an apple cider vinegar and red pepper based sauce. It is served with hush puppies, cole slaw and Brunswick stew Tom Solomon’s 10 commandments for barbecue (East Carolina BBQ) 1.Thou shalt not have any barbecue but The One True Barbecue before thee 2. Thou shalt not barbecue beef, not chicken, but only pork 3. Thou shalt not cook with gas, nor with infrared horizontal ovens, but only with hardwoods such as hickory or oak, or apple if you must. 4. Thou shalt not make for yourself a graven sauce, or any likeness of any commercial sauce like unto that made in factories in Texas or Kansas City; thou shalt not use tomato, nor ketchup,nor honey,nor mustard; but only have apple cider vinegar and red pepper before thee. 5. Thou shalt not take the name of Eastern North Carolina Barbecue in vain. 6. Thou shalt remember the pit day of Thursday, and keep it holy. 7. Honor thy pit master and thy waitress, that your barbecue may be always plentiful and your ice-tea glass be always full. 8. Thou shalt not consort with health inspectors, nor with environmental zealots, nor with vegetarians, for verily it is so that Hitler was a vegetarian, and Hitler was bad. 9. Thou shalt have hush puppies and slaw and Brunswick stew with thy barbecue 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife- unless she professeth to love thy barbecue, is attractive, and will bring you beer as you tend thy pit. Tom Solomon’sOne True Barbecue Sauce 16 ounces apple cider vinegar 1 Tablespoon red pepper flakes 1 1/2 Tablespoons Phu Quoc brand nuoc mam* 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper 1/2 teaspoon black pepper Mix all ingredients and let stand for one or two days before using. Mix with pulled pork barbecue before serving if using as a dip. Note. It is important to use the Vietnamese nouc mam. Other brands tend to be too salty and fishy to blend with the other ingredients. *In the 1600’s and 1700’s people use a concoction called English Ketchup. It contained clams. This recipe comes close to duplicating the original recipe used by the early colonists except their sauce contained clams. Phu Quac replaces the clams in the original recipe. Lexington Style Usually consists of pork shoulder, is closed pit, pulled off the bone but you can order it chopped or sliced. Sauce may have a touch of tomatoes or ketchup added. Served with hush puppies, BBQ potatoes and cornbread. South Carolina has it’s own terrain, personality and BBQ. It is most famous for it’s mustard based sauce but you can find vinegar, tomato or ketchup based sauces in different areas around the state. Pork tends to be whole hog with hams and shoulders apparent too. It is chopped or pulled. One side that is different in parts of South Carolina is BBQ hash, a mixture of meats and rice in place of Brunswick stew. Georgia Pork is the star but you can find beef, chicken, turkey and even lamb, but mostly it is pork slow smoking. Brunswick is in Georgia so they claim the stew and BBQ hash is popular in places too. Sandwiches come on plain white bread. Collard greens, potato salad and coleslaw are common side dishes. Alabama Along the gulf coast, Texas style beef brisket is popular, Toward Tennessee, Memphis influences are around but the red sauce is often spicier. You will find white sauce made with mayonnaise, vinegar and black pepper. Popular sides are onion rings, fries, potato salad and slaw Kentucky Western Kentucky its shredded mutton, in Eastern part of the state it’s pork and has a lot in common with the Carolinas style. Mutton is served with a tomato based sauce the comes in mild, hot and extra hot versions. Naked mutton- no sauce, just chopped is popular there too. A popular side dish is a stew called Burgoo. Western Kentucky, BBQ is served on cornbread rather than a bun or white bread. Arkansas Generally east means pork, west means beef but trends blend. Sauces are browner, thicker and sweeter than in most of the South. Cole slaw, baked beans and french fries are all common sides. Texas A very large state with a few thousand BBQ spots. Cattle is king and brisket is most popular but you can get ribs, sausage, pork, chicken, mutton, rattlesnake and armadillo. In West Texas cabrito ( young goat) popular. In South Texas there is a dish where the head of a cow is wrapped in burlap and cheesecloth and BBQed. Closed Pit BBQs are most often used and portable ones shaped like beer bottles, longhors steers or pistols are like Texas art forms. Mesquite is legendary but it burns too hot and fast and more Texans use hickory, oak and pecan. Dry rubs inclued the typical stuff plus influences from the south and Mexico such as chili powders, cumin and garlic. Sauces may be mopped on during the cooking or at the last 30 minutes or left off completely. Sauce is usually tomato based, a bit thinner than in the midwest and typically is made of ketchup, Worcesteshire sauce, chili powder, dry mustard and sugar, with paprika, garlic, cumin, onions or even vinegar sometime added. Sides include Pinto beans, coleslaw, various kinds or potato salad, corn on the cob,mac and cheese, and all manner of peppers. Don’t be surprised if your BBQ is served on brown butcher paper. Memphis in May is where one of the world's largest BBQ contests take place and it is all about pork. It is the World Championship Barbecue Contest. There is a side contest for everything else but the main thing in Memphis is hog. I hear some people even BBQ spaghetti and pizza though. The big controversy in Memphis is wet or dry ribs. Wet ribs are served with sauce, dry ribs are served without or "naked". Sometimes dry ribs have sauce on the side but that is not allowed in competition. You must either put it on or leave it off completely. Typical sauce in Memphis is tomato based and both hot and sweet with some vinegar. Sweet can come from marmalade, brown sugar, molasses, but the sweet does not dominate. Hot comes from cayenne, black and red pepper. Some even include things that range from Italian Dressing to Coca Cola. Sides are BBQ baked beans, skin-on fries, coleslaw and onion rings. One popular signature sandwich is pulled pork with sauce on a bun and topped with coleslaw. Kansas City ( I am prejudiced. KC is my hometown) Barbecue and Kansas City were fated for each other. Influences from the East came to Kansas City as the jumping off point for settlers heading west on the Oregon and California trails. Cattle drives from Texas terminated in Kansas City with the Santa Fe and Chisholm trails. Two rivers join in KC to provied water connections to the Mississipi and Ohio rivers with contacts east and south to Memphis and New Orleans. Later trains brought cattle to KC from Abilene and Dodge Cty where they off-loaded for food and water. Kansas City was grain exhange and pork meat packing center. Beef was a natual addition to the meat processing plants after they were fattened up on grain at the stock yards 1907 Henry Perry opened first BBQ restaurant in Kansas City. As far as known, it was the only one in the nation at that time. There were possibly a couple earlier ones in the South, but at the time his was the only one known. 25 years later there were over 1000 BBQ stands in K.C.. By the time of his death, he was known as the BBQ king and had three restaurants. In the 20’ and 30’s Kansas City virtually ignored prohibition with honky tonks, gambling and speak easys. Jazz developed a singular style in KC. It was a mecca where all kinds of styles of music and BBQ came together and blended to create lots of diversity. You will find whole hog, Memphis ribs and Texas beef combined with a style of it’s own. You can find BBQ chicken, fish, sausage, just about everything. Charlie Bryant was manager of one of Henry Perrys other restaurants. He took over the operation when Henry died in 1940. Charlie’s brother, Arthur Bryant also worked for Mr. Perry. Arthur and took over when Charlie retired in 1946. Arthur changed the sauce. He thought Henry and his brother made it way too hot. Some consider Arthur Bryants the most famous barbecue joint on earth. His bbq is the standard by which others are judged. Some hate his style others love it. Calvin Trillin (1974 essay for The New Yorker) called it the best damned restaurant in the world. Now days it is no longer in the family. It is now the property of a white-owned restaurant company, has suburban branches and the sauce is for sale around the country. Arthur resisted bottling his sauce because -I am told- he didn’t want to put the ingredients on the label. Burnt Ends. Arthur Bryant used to trim off the blackened (not burned) ends of his brisket and put them out for people to nibble on while waiting in line to order. They became so popular that most restaurants carry a version of them today. Arthur Pinkhard..Henry Perry’s pit master at his original restaurant. After Perry’s death, he went to work for another BBQ restaurant, Old Kentuck. 1946 George Gates bought the run down restaurant. Arthur came with the restaurant and taught the Gates family all about Henry Perry’s techniques: slow cooking meats over wood coals. He retired in the early 50’s, and died not long afterwards. Gates and Son’s is owned by Ollie Gates today. He is the most successful bbq restaurant entrepreneur in Kansas City. Sauces are deep red, thick and pungent. Some are sweet like Memphis. Dry rubs are commonly used and include paprika, salt, black and red peppers, sugar and garlic powder. The Kansas City Barbeque Society has a few thousand members in all 50 states and several other countries and sponcer or sanction a network of BBQ contests all over the country. There are at least 20 BBQ contests each year in Kansas city, the American Royal being touted as the largest in the world ( the World Series of BBQ) Sides inclued coleslaw, dirty rice, potato salad and Kansas City baked beans which include beef drippings and beef brisket bits (burnt ends) added.